Stating the Obvious
for Savannah Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem “The Good News” is good news Universal Design is good news Sunday potlucks are good news Song lyrics dedicated to a friend are good news Vigiling for Palestine is…
Note to a Friend on the Back of Allen Ginsberg’s Poem, Death and Fame
This poem is pure Allen, Lovable and vain Allen to the end You gotta love him– Evidently, lots of men did Rereading this poem Lights my fire “He taught me how to meditate, now I’m…
Fifteen Iraqi Poets
So we need poets to challenge received notions, tell us what we don’t know, ask the questions we can’t answer, and wake us up to both doom and Utopia. — Translator and essayist Eliot Weinberger…
Dear _____________________
Dear Netanyahu, Thank you. You’ve reminded me of my capacity to experience immense rage. Candidly, Mark Chmiel Dear Frenchwell, Thank you for passing on the wisdom and skill of your Israeli genius-teacher. You practice right…
Beautiful Friendships by Clara Takarabe
Mark, I’ve been ruminating on your last email. There are a few things that come to mind really strongly when you asked that question, “what is important and what am I responsible for?” The…
Share the Wealth: “Walking in Beauty: Our Time with the Navajo” with Patrick Cousins
Patrick Cousins has been invested in the life of the Navajo Nation for nearly twenty years, including two years teaching in a Navajo high school and leading roughly twenty immersion groups to the reservation. Patrick…
Free Palestine
Over the weekend (Scores of Palestinians being killed) The pro basketball player tweeted Free Palestine The president of the Zionist Organization of America stated “Anyone who uses the phrase ‘Free Palestine’ is either ignorant of…
Communities of Resistance
Dear Sangha, I’ve been rereading book I first encountered back in the 1980s, The Raft Is Not the Shore. (This title will remind some of us of our recent sutra readings.) It’s a dialogue between Thich…
Share the Wealth with Savannah Sisk: Universal Design & Health Literacy
I know you all have had that moment where you wake up in the middle of the night and think, “I wonder what occupational therapy and universal design and health literacy and healthcare reform all…
The Thread of One’s Anger — Jean-Paul Sartre
I always felt I had to stay in contact with the world, with my world. Ever since Marx, philosophy must lead to action. Otherwise it is irrelevant. So a philosopher does what he has to…